An admirer once noted with alarm Arthur Rubinstein`s penchant for pushing himself seemingly to the point of overexertion. ”You work like a galley slave,” she said.
The courtly old gentleman smiled and replied: ”Excuse me, my dear, a galley slave is condemned to work he detests. I am in love with mine, madly in love. To me it isn`t work, it`s passion. All my life I`ve been an adventurer. I have seen practically the entire world. I give an average of 100 concerts a year. In my 80th year, I totaled 162 on four continents. That, I`m sure, is what keeps me young.”
And young he eternally remains, a condition unaltered by the fact of the pianist`s death, at age 95, a little over four years ago. As the 100th anniversary of his birth draws near, the Arthurian legend no doubt will take on renewed luster from a profusion of concert tributes, reissued recordings and critical appreciations.
Chicago, the American city for which Rubinstein held special affection, is doing its part to honor his memory. The pianist Pawel Checinski will play a recital in memory of his Polish countryman at Roosevelt University on Jan. 28, the actual date of the anniversary, while radio stations WFMT (98.7 FM) and WNIB (97.1 FM) beginning this month are presenting extended series of Rubinstein recordings. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, a WFMT profile of Rubinstein will include a BBC interview with the pianist at the age of 90.
Who was this indestructible hero, this protean artist considered by many to be the greatest pianist of his day, this debonair grand seigneur of the keyboard who delighted in sharing with his worshipful audiences the accumulated insights of a life lived to the fullest? How did he draw such beautiful and eloquent sounds from the piano, and, even more important, how was he able to do so with such tireless aplomb over so long a career?
Like most miracles of nature, Rubinstein defied easy explanations. Compared to his contemporary and nearest rival, Vladimir Horowitz, who carefully rationed his concert appearances over the years, Rubinstein was a musical marathon man who took on more performances as he grew older, and indeed played them better than most pianists a third his age.
Late in life he thought nothing of playing both Brahms concertos on a single program, or three by Beethoven. In 1956, the year of his 69th birthday, he presented a series of five Carnegie Hall concerts within two weeks, playing 17 concertos, and to celebrate what he considered his 25th American anniversary in 1961, he returned to Carnegie to give 10 recitals that represented a miniature historical survey of the piano literature. One cannot recall a single instance of another piano virtuoso, past or present, still going as strong in his 70s and 80s.
Not only did the Olympian pianist refuse to take any credit for such concentrated feats, he dispatched them with such unruffled control that one could easily imagine him repeating the entire program right then and there, with only the slightest encouragement from the audience. The affection that Rubinstein communicated when he played was returned in full. His recitals were as much love feasts as artistic events, with capacity audiences flowing onto the stage, yelling themselves hoarse and leaping to their feet during the parade of encores.
Few artists in any generation exert the kind of charisma that Rubinstein had. Part of it stemmed from the directness, the lack of affectation, of his interpretations. His golden piano sound, his aristocratic poise and suppleness of phrasing, his limitless dynamic range, his unmannered elegance, above all his contagious joie de vivre–all were articles of faith at a Rubinstein recital. He was a Romantic for the modern age, his playing rich in sentiment but abhoring sentimentality.
He applied these gifts to a large repertory that began with Mozart, proceeded through Beethoven and the German Romantics, and ended with Rachmaninoff, the impressionists and modern Spanish music, with a bow to such nationalist composers as Szymanowski and Villa-Lobos. But it is as a Chopinist that Rubinstein is primarily celebrated, and for good reason. Perhaps no pianist was more faithful to the spirit of Chopin`s music, or less bound by the letter of it.
Others may play Chopin with more heady virtuosity, others with more intellectual penetration. But Rubinstein`s Chopin was suffused with a poetic feeling that seemed to flow spontaneously from the music. Chopin was the composer he loved above all others, and in Chopin he stood supreme.
Part of Rubinstein`s charisma stemmed from his image as a bon vivant, his well-publicized love of fine cigars, good wines and beautiful women, not necessarily in that order. He retained in the 20th Century all those old-fashioned virtues of the 19th–warmth, charm, elegance, a lively intellect, abundant social graces–everything, in short, that is embodied by the term
”grand manner.” The author Joseph Roddy has observed that Rubinstein wore
”the manner of a man fated to be a late-blooming splendor, and it is quite likely that if he had turned his energies to writing sonnets, painting landscapes, the diplomatic service or holy orders, he would be no less renowned now.” Lucky for us, music got him first.
He was a natural pianist, in the fullest sense of the word. The piano was as much his God-given instrument as the violin was Jascha Heifetz`s, or the orchestra Leopold Stokowski`s.
Of course, theories abounded as to how he was able to produce that distinctive tone, mellow and singing at any volume level. Some experts cited the thick pads at the ends of his fingers; others pointed to his arm-weighted strokes and his pliant wrists. Stephen Borell, Rubinstein`s one-time piano tuner, claimed that it all had to do with the minute ”cushioning” pauses that occurred just before the pianist`s fingers hit the keys.
Whatever the explanation (and all may be correct), the Rubinstein sound was unique, readily identifiable in the concert hall, less so on recordings, which seldom if ever did it justice. (Recent CD reissues have brought a distinct improvement over some of the original pressings.) That sound was allied to a surpassing musicality, intelligence and technique. And yet technique was not always the pianist`s strong point. His American debut in 1906, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, was not a success either with the critics or the public, and for more than a decade he did not play in the United States at all.
Rubinstein liked to tell interviewers that it was his marriage in 1932, and the pressure of competition with the reigning pianists of his day, that forced him, in midcareer, to take stock of himself. He began to patch up the holes in his technique, devote more time to practice (which he had always detested) and pay more attention to the niceties of the printed page. ”I decided,” said Rubinstein, ”that I didn`t want my children growing up to hear that their father was a lazy bum who could have been a good pianist.”
When he made his grand re-entry into America in 1937, under the aegis of impresario Sol Hurok, it was as a very good pianist indeed. Rubinstein and Hurok clinched the deal with a handshake. From then on the pianist never lost his magnetic hold over the concert public. And Rubinstein, who always said he wished to make music rather than a personal sensation, achieved both.
Rubinstein was close to virtually every important artist and public figure of the century, a broad network of cultural and intellectual associations that left a profound mark on his playing. He was born in Lodz, Poland, in 1887, the year that the world first heard Verdi`s ”Otello.”
Brahms was still alive, as were Dvorak and Tchaikovsky. Man and boy, Rubinstein was befriended by Saint-Saens, rubbed elbows with Picasso and Diaghilev, and championed the music of Stravinsky, Albeniz, Granados, Falla, Poulenc and Ravel when these composers were considered wildly avant garde.
Seventy years after Rubinstein`s American debut, he was giving what turned out to be his farewell tour of the United States, playing 20 cities, including Chicago. The pianist, 89, was by then partially blind and had lost the hearing in his right ear. Rubinstein nearly canceled his Orchestra Hall appearance because of his failing eyesight, but Harry Zelzer, who was presenting him here, persuaded the pianist to change the program to all-Chopin ”because you know Chopin by heart.”
For veteran Rubinstein watchers that tour was an occasion for mingled emotions. He did not lose his place, he did not falter. But neither was he able to convey the full intensity of what he felt in the music, and neither could the measured tempos and guarded grandeur challenge memories of the passionate poet of yore. Ultimately, it didn`t matter. The legend was secure, and the sad reminders of human frailty only made it appear more formidable.
The pianist Rosina Lhevinne, herself an important contemporary of Rubinstein`s, had the last word on his ”inaccuracies.” To a student who mentioned Arthur Rubinstein`s occasional wrong notes, she replied, dreamily,
”Ah, but what wrong notes.”
Like other musicians of his rank Rubinstein had a tremendous ego, one that needed and demanded respect, not to mention the very top fees. For concerts in America he collected either 70 percent of the gross income, or a flat fee of $6,000 minimum. It was said he made more money from records than any pianist of his time–for years he would describe his lavish Hollywood home as ”the house that RCA Victor jack built.”
And Rubinstein could be surprisingly mean-spirited in public with colleagues whose artistic goals and dispositions differed from his own. Jascha Heifetz was ”a fool” who ”never touched my heart with his playing.” The pianist complained that he never enjoyed playing duos with Heifetz. ”Always the program read `Heifetz and Rubinstein,` never once `Rubinstein and Heifetz.` No, I am through with that. If I play duets again, even with God, it will be `Rubinstein and God.”`
It`s hard to imagine any of today`s young lions getting away with a line like that, even in jest. As one of the last living exemplars of the divine right of keyboard kings, Rubinstein clearly enjoyed the authority that a successful career had brought him. Unlike his colleagues Artur Schnabel, Rudolf Serkin and Horowitz, he did not teach, so he left no successors. If you scan the current crop of faceless young technicians, none emerges with anything close to the warmly outgoing musical personality of Rubinstein, his aristocratic touch, his robustness of mind and heart. They are not there, because the kind of environment that could produce a Rubinstein no longer exists.
”A musician has the right to wear the title `artist` only when there is not another like him,” he once said, brandishing a credo that marked him as the last of the artists.
HOW TO ASSEMBLE A RUBINSTEIN COLLECTION
RCA Red Seal, for which Rubinstein was under exclusive contract for much of his career, is in the process of digitally remastering many of its stereo- era Rubinstein recordings and issuing them on compact disc.
To honor the pianist`s centennial, RCA has planned to release 10 CDs grouped under the rubric, ”The Rubinstein Collection.” Some of these performances, such as a charming program of French works by Ravel, Poulenc, Faure and Chabrier (5665-2-RC) and highlights from Rubinstein`s historic 1961 Carnegie Hall recitals (5670-2-RC), have been long unavailable and are most welcome.
Also part of the initial ”Rubinstein Collection” CD release are the virile and poetic account of the Brahms D-Minor Concerto the pianist made here in 1954 with Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony (5668-2-RC), and a lovely Schumann recital containing the ”Fantasiestucke” and ”Carnaval” (5667-2-RC).
Anyone wishing to build a basic Rubinstein library should start with his nonpareil Chopin recordings, all essential to an understanding of the pianist`s art. New and highly recommended: the nocturnes (5613-2-RC), mazurkas (5614-2-RC), polonaises (5615-2-RC) and the two piano concertos (5612-2-RC).
Given the rapid rate at which CDs are crowding black discs out of the catalogue, the collector may wish to snap up certain Rubinstein LPs now, since it may be years before any of this material reappears in digitalized incarnations. For starters, try the pianist`s Mozart piano concerto recordings (20 and 24 on AGL1-5270, 21 and 23 on AGL1-5243), his superb Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto and ”Paganini Rhapsody,” with Reiner conducting
(ARP1-4934), and a Beethoven sonata collection holding the ”Moonlight,”
”Pathetique” and ”Appassionata” (LSC-3307).
